


Tar & Glass

by honest (khakees)



Category: Fantastic Four, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Drugs mention, Explicit Language, M/M, Slight Internalised Homophobia, death mention, one mention of boners, ridiculous amounts of pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 11:58:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8623669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khakees/pseuds/honest
Summary: After disappearing for two years, Johnny Storm returns to his midwest hometown a different person to when he’d left. At least, he thinks that’s the case. Seeing his best friend Peter Parker again reminds him that some things, no matter the distance, remain exactly the same.  And that’s just it, isn’t it? Johnny could’ve left the town behind, his family and the friends he’s had since he was two because no one new ever comes and no one ever leaves - except Johnny, but he failed at that, didn’t he? He’s back. He could’ve left the town but he couldn’t erase the stars, the sky, the thread that weaves his universe together. He couldn’t leave Peter. (Inspired by the Lumineers’ ‘Angela’)





	

**Author's Note:**

> so this was born after falling asleep too many times to the lumineers album and my roots as a quasi-country australian kid - therefore it probably doesn't actually resemble that much of the american midwest, but please bare with me. 
> 
> the only reason i would ever have thought of writing this is because of bex, who threatened me at gun point to do the spideytorch big bang (aka, she said 'wanna do it' and i said 'hell yeah'), so i obviously gotta thank her. 
> 
> i also want to thank the amazingly talented chezza who did the artwork for this fic and which i still can't directly look at without crying. she's incredible and deserves like, every good thing. 
> 
> anyway, listen to this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_II0fc7hgNY
> 
> and enjoy!

Johnny Storm sweeps back into town when the sun is at it’s highest, brightest, when it paints the whole world the same shade of washed-out white. Nobody notices. He is just another face blistering in July heat; his bike is the dirtiest in the parking lot but that isn’t saying much when every vehicle in a ten mile radius is caked in years worth of mud and grit; he doesn’t look a thing like the tableaux of his departure two years ago, squeaky clean and already miles out of Baxterville before he hopped on the bike and never looked back. 

 

Peter Parker doesn’t notice because he’s still asleep. Face down on the pillow, naked with the sheets in a sweaty puddle by his feet (Baxterville summer is hellfire on gasoline - nobody in their right mind sleeps with clothes on). Somewhere in the house Aunt May is singing, terribly, banging pots together as she pretends to cook with her headphones in, hoping Peter might wake up before three in the afternoon today. It’s not likely. He hadn’t gotten home until May was already up, eating cereal in the blessed minute of cool before six, like he had the past week and half. 

 

It’s worrying. But then again, Peter is always worrying. May is in a constant state of fearing the day Peter hops on a bike of his own and chases after that stupid, reckless Johnny Storm. All of the things he gets up to in the middle of night is just a warm up, May knows. It’s only a matter of time.

 

But now Johnny Storm is back, scuffed and beat-up enough that the shine he used to blind people with, especially in sun like this, is long gone. Nobody notices Johnny Storm enter the diner, slide into a barstool and ask for a cup of coffee - not even the waitress who takes his order. For a moment, Johnny Storm is just another passer-by on a dirtbike, until Mary-Jane’s ‘halfway through a double shift and lagging’ brain catches up. She double-takes, and drops her pad and pen. 

 

“ _Johnny?_ ” Mary-Jane squints at him like people do at artefacts in museums, like they can’t quite believe something that old has survived this long. Johnny grins at her, his face crumpling up at the stiffened corners where there never used to be lines, but now there is. Mary-Jane’s mouth falls open. 

 

“Still as charming as ever, Mary-Jane,” Johnny leers. 

 

Mary-Jane moves her mouth for a bit without actually saying anything - Johnny can see the cogs in her brain whirring, trying to make sense of what’s happening. Then she explodes, “You asshole!”

 

“Hey now!” Johnny says, palms up. “You know I’m joking. Believe me, I’d never dream of seriously accusing _you_ of being charming-“

 

“You _fucking_ asshole!” Mary-Jane hisses, leaning over the countertop to jab a blunt fingernail into his chest. She looks like hell personified, dark circles doing nothing to douse the fire in her eyes as she glares at Johnny with all she’s got. 

 

“You’ve already said that,” Johnny says, just to watch the vein in her temple pop out and start twitching. 

 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Mary-Jane asks, all up in his space. She seems to think better of it because she leans back, folds her arms over her chest, and says, “Actually, don’t answer that - I don’t care. Get out.”

 

“I’m a paying customer, Watson, you can’t kick me out,” Johnny says, trying on his best charming smile. They used to work for him all the time, although he’s forgotten if they ever worked on Mary-Jane.

 

“Oh yeah? Watch me.” Johnny remembers very quickly just how Mary-Jane responds to his charm when she throws the salt shaker at him. It shatters on the floor a foot away, silencing the entire diner so Johnny can hear very, very clearly when Mary-Jane says, “Get. Out.”

 

Johnny Storm’s anonymous re-entry into the Life and Times of Baxterville doesn’t last long after that, and Johnny should be relieved - he _is_ relieved. He is. The golden boy of Baxterville is back and people should damn well _know about it,_ he can barely believe Mary-Jane didn’t even _recognise him_ , but- but. 

 

Two years is a long time. And if he’s honest, there’s only one reason he’s back in this town and it’s not the patented steak and pumpkin sandwiches. So, maybe, Johnny shouldn’t care if no one ever realises who he is (or used to be), but there’s that small insistent part of himself that really, really does.

 

Johnny never wanted to be someone who only came alive for other people. A plastic shell they could pour their opinions into, their adoration or contempt or straight-up dismissal, whatever they wanted - and that’s what he became. He thought, _I’m better than that._ Johnny fucking Storm is more than a lost, insecure kid chasing after people’s applause just so he can feel real. People look at him and _know_ \- that’s Johnny Storm, the brightest, the kid with the great hair and mile-a-minute mouth, the one who’s going to do something great someday. 

 

But he never was more than that, and now he knows for sure. He spent two years trying to be somebody more than Johnny from bum-fuck Baxterville and he failed. He comes home, a discoloured and dingy plastic container nobody has any use for anymore, and no one gives a shit. He’s burned every bridge and scribbled over every picture that might remind him of the person he’s supposed to be; he is as washed out as the sun-bleached pavement, the wavering heat lingering over the horizon that leads to nowhere. And he wants to believe he doesn’t need it - the reputation, the whispering whenever he walks by (that’s _Johnny Storm_ , y’know?), but he does. He’s invisible without it. As good as dead. 

 

Dust coats his boots in a new shade as he walks. He thinks they were originally tan, but the leather is caked in so much dirt and mud and grime he’s watched them go from brown to black to something grey and crumbly, as worn as his insides feel. Johnny walks away from the diner and the motel and the heart of Baxterville, landmarked by the city hall and dollar store that sells everything but triple A batteries, and heads towards the farms. 

 

No one stops him, no one whispers - no one even bothers looking his way.

 

 

***

 

 

Aunt May watches Johnny Storm walk up their pot-holed driveway like a he’s an apparition, manifested out of the mid-afternoon summer haze and the power of her own incessant worrying to bring him back to life. _It can’t be._ But it is. Johnny Storm, with his sleek, swoopy hair now a curly mess atop his head, more dust on him than skin, walking up her driveway. 

 

She backs away from the kitchen window, wondering if she should wake Peter or knock him out with a skillet to the head, but she dithers too long and there’s a knock at the door. Five times in a familiar, quick rhythm - an echo of two years ago. _Da, da-da da, da da._ May is frozen in place when Peter scrambles from his room and into the hall, all bed-hair and clumsily pulled on sweatpants. 

 

“Did I-?” he asks, turning to May with the biggest saucer eyes. He looks five years old again, standing in her living room staring at the space his parents used to take up when they came over for movie nights. Now, there are no tears in his eyes but he is just as fragile, new, and breakable. So eager to look for ghosts. _Did I imagine it?_

 

“No, that’s-“ because she can’t lie and hope Johnny eventually leaves. Peter is already long lost as he stares at the front door, fingers trembling just a bit as he pushes his hair away from his face. It does nothing but make it stick up even more and May wants to coo, lick her thumbs and slick down the sides, but she doesn’t. She lets Peter go, because he isn’t five years old anymore and there are some ghosts you just can’t hide from. 

 

Peter half excepts to open the door on empty air, summer heat, and a good view of the dried-up paddocks. He still feels half-asleep, his brain and self-preservation skills left tangled in his sweaty sheets. But he pulls the door open and there is Johnny. Wind beaten and scuffed around the edges in a way he’d never let himself be two years ago, but most certainly Johnny. His smile is still perfectly even, all teeth, when he looks up from his dirty boots.

 

“Pete!” Johnny says warmly, as if Peter isn’t holding himself up by the doorframe with his jaw dragging along the floor. “You look like shit!”

 

 

And it’s like Johnny never kicked up an untraceable dust trail on his dirt bike early one morning and didn’t look back. He is just as Johnny as he always was: too-white teeth and tan skin and hair Peter can almost see bleaching blonder in the sun as the seconds go by. His clothes are shabbier, there’s dirt on the bridge of his nose and caked under his chipped fingernails when he rakes a hand through his un-styled hair, but he is Johnny. Blindingly bright, larger than life. A bushfire of a boy who will never burn out.

 

It takes a second too long for Peter to reply, nothing like their past repartee (so far in the past it’s almost out of reach), but he eventually fumbles out a, “Like you can talk. I can’t believe you left the house with your hair looking like that.”

 

“Hey, sex hair is in right now. Don’t you ever read _Vogue?_ ” Johnny says, scrubbing a hand over his hair again. 

 

It hits Peter hard, how easy he can tell the move is self-conscious even as Johnny jokes about it, tongue between his teeth like always. Peter thought he’d managed to forget all about Johnny Storm but the kick in his chest tells a very different story. He hasn’t forgotten a thing. 

 

“If you can call that sex hair. Looks more like a bird’s nest to me,” Peter says, his tongue dry in his throat. He doesn’t know what he’s saying anymore, what he’s doing lingering in his doorway, joking around with _Johnny Storm_ like it hasn’t been two years since he last saw him. Like nothing has changed. 

 

Then Johnny steps up, right in Peter’s space - he’s a hairsbreadth away from pushing their bodies together seam for seam and Peter’s brain turns to static. The smell of him is dizzying, the best-worst kind of sense memory, because under the scent of dirt and dust from the road is all Johnny. He is sweat and summer sun imbued into tanned skin, exactly how the colour yellow would smell. Intoxicating. Peter is suddenly, uncomfortably aware he isn’t wearing a shirt. 

 

But Johnny doesn’t close the whisper of a gap between their chests. He reaches up, smile quirking just a bit higher in one corner, and tugs at the messy tufts of Peter’s hair. He catches Peter’s eye and says, “What’s this then? A rat’s nest?”

 

“Nah,” Peter chokes, feeling Johnny’s breath hot on his face, “ _That’s_ sex hair. Don’t you ever read _Vogue?_ ”

 

Johnny’s smile softens into something terribly, awfully fond, and Peter feels that kick in his chest again. Looking at him hurts. Now all he can think about is the questions that have kept him up at night for years. He looks at Johnny and wonders if they’re all on his face, if that’s why Johnny’s smile is wilting and tired lines are appearing in the corners of his eyes, his mouth, where they never used to be. _Where did you go? Why did you leave? Why didn’t you take me with you?_

 

Peter doesn’t ask any of those questions. Instead, he forces himself to swallow around the lump in his throat and says, “What are you doing here?”

 

A taut beat of silence passes. Peter doesn’t dare breathe. He has no idea what Johnny could say - it feels like a whole universe of answers is spread out between them, so many Peter feels dizzy, and Johnny could pick any one of them. Peter is swaying, clutching into the doorframe to keep himself upright because this can’t be real, right? Now that he’s questioning his hallucination, his dream come to life, it’ll disappear just as easily as it arrived on his doorstep. 

 

Johnny licks his lips, darts his eyes to the side before settling somewhere over Peter’s shoulder with a pasted on, bright smile. “To see my favourite person, of course,” he says, pauses just enough for Peter’s insides to climb all the way into his throat, before adding, “Where is Aunt May? Don’t hide her from me, Pete.”

 

“You’re an asshole,” Peter says, thick and thin at the same time as he speaks over a mounting sob.

 

“That’s the third time I’ve been called that today,” Johnny says, but only really gets halfway through before Peter throws himself on him. Gangly limbs wrap around Johnny’s shoulders so tight all his breath leaves him with an ‘oof’, jolting him back a step on the Parker’s porch. He flails and grabs onto Peter’s waist on pure survival instinct. 

 

That’s what Johnny tells himself, anyway, with Peter’s nose pressed into his neck and his hot, wet breath fanning out over his collarbone. He didn’t think he could feel anything warmer than the summer sun bearing on his back, but that small patch of heat on his skin from Peter’s mouth is singularly searing. Johnny wont be surprised if there’s a burn mark when Peter pulls away, but for now he doesn’t seem inclined. 

 

Johnny holds him, Peter’s hair poking him in the eye and their legs all tangled up together in a disaster waiting to happen, and he breathes. For the first time in forever the world stops spinning beneath his feet. The musky, sweat-sweet smell of Peter nails him to the core of the earth so Peter, this moment of being glued together like no force in the world could split them apart, himself how he is right now - all of it is as solid and real as anything could be. No longer invisible, for this one shining minute. This is home. 

 

But the moment has to end. The earth keeps on spinning as Peter draws back, unlooping his arms from around Johnny’s neck and breaking Johnny’s hold on his waist. There are two steps between Johnny and Peter’s crooked, goofy smile that was always too big for his face. 

 

Johnny had forgotten that this twisting too-much not-enough feeling in the wake of Peter’s touch is home as well. 

 

As much as the broad slope of Peter’s shoulders is the straight line of Johnny’s horizon, the sweep of freckles on his nose the constellations to keep him on his path, Johnny will never catch up with Peter. There will always be this distance, like driving on a straight flat road to nowhere and wondering why the setting sun never gets any closer. There’s a spark in Johnny that burns too bright and he won’t let Peter get caught in the crossfire. To protect him, but mostly, selfishly, stupidly — he doesn’t want to give him up. 

 

_But you did._ And that’s just it, isn’t it? He could’ve left the town behind, his family and the friends he’s had since he was two because no one new ever comes and no one ever leaves - except Johnny, but he failed at that, didn’t he? He’s back. He could’ve left the town but he couldn’t erase the stars, the sky, the thread that weaves his universe together. He couldn’t leave Peter. 

 

Even though he knew the little flame tucked against his heart was getting out of control and it was leave or burn, go or consume, and he thought he could do what was right but he’s never been that strong. Never been able to smoulder in steady patience, always had to flare and pop and sear. He is fireworks, too-hot and transient. The closer Peter comes the worse he will burn. 

 

“Stay for dinner, then,” Peter says after one long, spectacularly lashed blink. “Your favourite person is making meatloaf.”

 

Johnny knows what he should do. But, his bones are tired. He’s sick of running, waiting for the fabric of the world to drop away the longer he keeps himself out of Peter’s reach. So his hands are shaking, just a bit, as he tucks them in his pockets and his heart is beating too fast for it to feel like it’s even moving, but of course, of course, _of course_ he says, “Wouldn’t miss May’s meatloaf for the world.”

 

 

 

***

 

 

For the first time in weeks, Peter doesn’t leave the house at night. It’s a unique kind of torture - his sheets, freshly washed with the ones Aunt May tucked around the couch for Johnny, feel like straps binding Peter to the bed. He couldn’t move if he tried. But just because he isn't out running through the still-frigid, empty night doesn’t mean he’s sleeping. 

 

Stupid thoughts keep him awake. Johnny and Peter’s sheets smell like the same fabric softener - does that mean when Johnny wakes, he’ll smell like Peter? Or will it be that Peter smells like Johnny? Which one is better, which one is worse? Peter can’t decide if the image of Johnny spiriting out the front door at three in the morning just as silently as the night he left town is more panic-inducing than the thought of Johnny tucked up on their couch, sleeping soundly with his mouth slightly open and his hair all tangled from being smushed on the couch cushions. 

 

For the first time in two years Peter is in the same house as Johnny’s heartbeat. If he stays quiet enough he thinks he might be able to hear Johnny breathing. He can’t stop thinking about Johnny breathing. It’s stupid, he knows, but he was gone for two years and thats a long time for Peter’s overthinking, overactive imagination to come up with a whole lot of terrifying potential outcomes for Johnny’s spontaneous disappearing act. 

 

A little part of Peter’s heart was convinced Johnny was dead, though he’d never say it out loud. And sometimes Peter would try and go to sleep but couldn’t breathe as the thought consumed him - Johnny dead, adding another aching, cavernous hole to the collection in Peter’s chest - and he’d get up and not be able to stop running for hours.

 

Now he is consumed with Johnny’s heartbeat. Real, healthy, alive - Johnny Storm asleep on his couch. It’s paralysing. So Peter lies awake, stiff, all night and rises with Aunt May at the asscrack of dawn. He doesn’t know why she isn’t surprised to see him emerge from his bedroom instead of the front door. She just smiles softly like he’s expected and hands him a cup of tea she’s already made for him. They don’t say anything, hyper aware of the body snoring softly in the next room over. 

 

Johnny doesn’t wake up till noon. It’s at once expected and alarming. Aunt May leaves with this smile on her face that makes Peter feel like he’s ten years old again, and then it’s just Peter left to wait for Johnny to wake up. He’s so afraid Johnny’ll bolt as soon as he opens his eyes that Peter refuses to make a sound, but when a couple of hours have passed and Johnny still hasn’t woken, he starts being afraid that Johnny might not open his eyes ever again. 

 

Peter’s stuck between two heart-stopping fears and wondering which one would be worse when Johnny snuffles a loud, nasal sound and jerks into consciousness so suddenly Peter falls out of his armchair. 

 

From the floor, Peter watches Johnny blink at him with wide-eyed confusion. Realisation settles over him gently, steadily, and then he screws his face up into a smirk and says, “Were you watching me sleep? That’s very serial killer of you.”

 

“Shut up,” Pete says into the rug. He feels three kinds of overcharged and the rug is very sympathetic to his emotional state. It hides his blush rather effectively when he shoves his face into it. 

 

“Are you plotting ways to bring me to your freaky serial killer dungeon? Should I be worried about the water?” Johnny continues. Peter can’t see his face but he knows by osmosis that his expression is punchable.

 

“I was making sure you were still alive. You’ve been asleep for forever.” Peter is also aware that he sounds like bratty six year old, but it’s not like he had any dignity left when it comes to Johnny Storm anyway. 

 

“Think you missed the memo on the whole serial _killer_ thing, pal. Don’t quit your day job,” Johnny says. Peter twists his head to see him lying back on the couch, one arm slung over his eyes and his feet dangling off the edge. Thankfully his eyes are covered, because Peter is sure there’s some physical manifestation on his face of the twisty feeling in his chest at seeing Johnny Storm half naked and barely covered by a sheet on his couch.

 

“You make no sense,” is Peter’s amazing comeback before he pushes himself to his feet and stomps into the kitchen to make Johnny coffee. 

 

Johnny peeks under his arm to watch Peter leave - his little butt in his sweatpants is still just as cute as it was two years ago, if not cuter. Johnny had plenty of ideas about just sitting here, soaking in the sameness of everything and imagining what it would be like if he had never left, but now that he’s awake he’s jittery. He should give Peter his moment alone in the kitchen, but he can’t sit still - it feels all too much like he’s trying to fit himself somewhere he shouldn’t.

 

So Johnny follows Peter into the kitchen, stretching out his couch-stiff limbs and taking a whiff of his special on-the-road brand of BO. Yikes. He’s never needed a shower more in his life.

 

He stares out the kitchen window while Peter makes coffee. He can see the Parker’s long driveway, still kicking up dust from when Aunt May drove out this morning. There’s the ditches all around the house from when May was going to grow vegetables but never got around to planting, and that’s where Johnny broke his first bone. Running after Peter playing cops and robbers, not watching where he was going, so he tripped in the ditch and smacked his face on a rock. His nose is just slightly crooked from where the bone never reset properly. 

 

Johnny always found the familiarity of Baxterville suffocating. You could live and die only ever seeing the same sunrise, surrounded by houses and hills and The Valley which never change. He thought leaving this behind for something that never stagnates was what he wanted. Being back, now, amongst the creaking rafters of the Parker’s house he half grew up in, he feels settled in a way he hadn’t known he’d been missing. 

 

“I wanna go out to the house,” Johnny says, shattering the quiet they’d fallen into. Peter startles just a bit, knocking the mugs together as he tries not to spill coffee all over himself. Johnny can feel Peter’s eyes on his back as he thinks of what to say. 

 

“Johnny,” he begins, stalling. Johnny doesn’t turn around. “You know… they’re not there anymore. Your family. They moved.”

 

It hurts to think about his family home now empty when he can picture it so perfectly, like he’s standing in it. Or maybe a new family will be in there, taking up the space that has always been theirs - Johnny and his family, since before time began. At least, that’s the way it always seemed. 

 

It’s funny, but whenever Johnny imagined leaving (and even when he actually did), he always just assumed his family and his home would still be here. It didn’t matter if he never came back. Just the thought of them still being in Baxterville was an anchor he barely even had to think about, it was so bone-deep assured. He supposes it’s just another thing he took for granted, when he was Johnny fucking Storm. 

 

“I know,” Johnny says. “Sue left me a voicemail. They’re up in Peoria now.”

 

“Right,” Peter says, sounding like he’s swallowing back whatever he really wants to say. He appears by Johnny’s side and nudges a hot coffee mug into his hand, also staring resolutely out the window. “You still wanna go?”

 

“Yeah.” Johnny doesn’t really know why. He thinks it’ll be awful to see his house like that. He knows its going to be like digging his fingers into an already nasty bruise, reminding himself that his family is gone. That it’s probably his fault. 

 

“If you-“ Peter begins, but at that moment Johnny spots a gradually approaching cloud of dirt, kicked up by a red car that really shouldn’t still be working. 

 

“Is that who I think it is?” Johnny asks, leaning over the counter to press his nose against the window. 

 

Peter sighs. “Yes. You better go hide if you wanna make it out alive.”

 

“Nah, that’s no fun. I wanna see her vein finally pop.” Johnny leans back and grins at Peter, who is doing that thing with his face that means he wants to act disapproving, like he knows better, but he’s about two seconds away from bursting out laughing. Johnny loves that face. It makes him look constipated. 

 

The car is driving too fast up the driveway, but that’s expected. The thumping of her music precedes the rattle of her engine, and she comes to a swerving stop in front of the house that sends a spray of dirt flying for the kitchen window. Mary-Jane slams her car door shut, pushing her sunglasses into her hair while practically sprinting for the front door - a chaotic series of movements that Johnny can barely follow. Peter sighs again, and goes to open the door. 

 

He doesn’t make it in time. Mary-Jane bangs the door open so hard it bashes into the wall and springs back, whacking her in the arm she strides into the house. She's already yelling, hair flying around her face, “Peter! I need to tell you something - Peter! Where the fuck are you? This is really fucking import-“

 

Mary-Jane skids into the kitchen and immediately freezes, as do Peter and Johnny. Peter, mid-stride towards the front door, looks like a deer in headlights as Mary Jane’s incredulous gaze slides from him to Johnny, still standing by the window with his mug of coffee. He leans against the counter and takes a sip before toasting his mug towards her. With a grin, he says, “Good morning, Watson.”

 

“MJ, uh, hey,” Peter says, laughing nervously as he scrubs a hand through his ridiculous hair. God, he’s awkward. Johnny kind of wants to fuck with him in front of Mary-Jane just to see that flush spread a bit further down his neck.

 

“What the fuck,” Mary-Jane says in a low, menacing voice. She’s glaring at Johnny, barely paying Peter’s adorable stuttering any mind. Johnny takes another sip of his coffee. 

 

“So, um, Johnny is back-“

 

“I know that, you moron!” Mary-Jane rounds on Peter, stepping forward to jab a finger into his chest. “That’s what I came all the way out here to _warn_ you about, because I knew that as soon as you saw him you were going to do something really stupid like _forgive him._ But I see I’m already too late! The strength of your idiocy knows no bounds!”

 

“May wanted him to stay for meatloaf!” Peter cries. “You know how she gets, she-“

 

“Actually, Pete, I think you invited me for dinner,” Johnny interrupts, because he is an asshole three times over and loves it when Peter gets all worked up. 

 

Mary-Jane slaps Peter on the arm with a feral kind of ‘gotcha’ sound, ignoring Peter’s wince. “Fucking _idiot!”_

 

“You’re acting like I invited Creepy Harry for dinner-“

 

“At least Creepy Harry never attached himself to your hip and then pissed off without a word for two fucking years! _Creepy Harry_ is a stand up fucking guy compared to this tool, Pete, because Creepy Harry never broke-“

 

“MJ!” Peter yells, effectively cutting off her tirade. Johnny feels blind-sided. 

 

For one, Creepy Harry really is a creep so that kind of stings, and two- broke what? Johnny can’t think about it or he might explode. There’ll be Johnny-coloured confetti covering every inch of the Parker’s kitchen, and he could never inflict that kind of clean-up on Aunt May in good conscience.

 

Mary-Jane and Peter have an intense, silent conversation while Johnny holds his coffee mug up to his mouth but doesn’t bother taking a sip. His mind isn’t really on coffee right now. He’s thinking about Mary-Jane throwing that salt shaker at him yesterday, about Peter watching him sleep, about the no-good things he used to think when he was little that made his hands feel dirty whenever he put them anywhere near Peter Parker. 

 

Because they were always best friends - Peter Parker and Johnny Storm, the unlikely but unbreakable duo terrorising Baxterville streets (and dirt roads and farm lands and The Valley, when they were old enough). So of course it hurt Peter when Johnny left. He knew that, as soon as he hopped on the bike and took off that night, because he felt it too. Like this shredding inside his chest, messy, leaving raw frayed edges that stung every time Johnny breathed. Because they were best friends, and that’s what it feels like to loose your friend. 

 

Except Johnny remembers the day Uncle Ben died, and it was- he can never pretend to know what Peter went through. He isn’t that damn conceited (thank you, Mary-Jane). Johnny mourned Uncle Ben, the man he knew his entire life who picked him and Peter up from all over town after they got up to stupid shit, who taught Johnny how to ride the quadbike in the Parker’s back paddock, who sat out with them on sleepover nights and pointed out all the constellations. 

 

But Johnny also mourned for Peter, too, and he tried to tell himself that it was just _what friends do,_ but he knows deep down it felt different. He sat on the couch next to Peter while Aunt May told the sheriff how Ben totalled that damn quadbike doing the same thing he always did, there was just a rock in a the way that never used to be there. Peter was crying, and his hands were shaking, but he was trying to pretend like he wasn’t feeling a thing. 

 

Johnny remembers taking his hand and lacing their fingers together, letting Peter squeeze so tight he felt the bones shift under his skin. And Johnny thought- good. Let him feel some of that pain - let him feel all of it, over and over again, if it meant Peter didn’t have to lose another person forever. 

 

He knew then, like he knows now, that it’s not what friends do. And if it is, then it’s not what Johnny meant by it when he cradled Peter’s hand in his lap for hours, or when he slept over that night and let Peter aggressively spoon him while he slept through fitful nightmares and Johnny didn’t sleep a wink. But Johnny also knows that he’s only ever going to be a friend to Peter. Anything closer and he’ll be just like Peter’s parents and like Uncle Ben, except worse, because none of them chose to hurt Peter so deep by leaving. Johnny will. It’s what he always does.

 

“Hey, I better go,” Johnny says. He doesn’t know if he’s interrupted an actual out-loud conversation because he's long past the point of paying attention. His jitters have kicked into full throttle, the hand that’s holding his mug is starting to shake, and he has to go.

 

“Where to?” Peter asks. Both he and Mary-Jane are staring at him - Peter is just confused, but Mary-Jane has that narrowed-eyed, straight-lipped look on her face that always used to give Johnny the shivers. She’s thinking about things too much. Johnny never benefits from Mary-Jane thinking too much. 

 

“The motel.” Johnny puts his mug down and casts around for his shirt, which is all the way in his living room past Peter and his beautiful morning hair, and Mary-Jane with her scary x-ray eyes. “I need to shower, get my shit together. Get out of your hair.”

 

“No you don’t,” Peter frowns. Johnny can’t look at him - he knows what he’ll find. Panic, and that heartbreaking thing his eyebrows do which Johnny really can’t handle. “You can shower here, I’ve got clothes- but if you want you’re own that’s fine, I’m not gonna make you stay, obviously, I’m sorry-“

 

“You should stay,” Mary-Jane says. Both Peter and Johnny stop to stare at her like she’s grown three heads. A wide, sunny, Mary-Jane smile spreads across her face and Johnny’s stomach bottoms out - not in the good way. She looks at Johnny as she says, “You can borrow a shirt off Peter, like he said. And I’m thinkin' we should go someplace, seeing as it’s Johnny’s first official day back in town and all. Like, the Orpheum? We can put the butter in cups and make popcorn dunking skewers like we used to, it’ll be fun.”

 

“Fun,” Peter echoes, blinking like he’s been punched in the face. Johnny feels much the same way. 

 

“Yeah, c’mon!” Mary-Jane walks up to Johnny and grabs his arm, lacing it with hers. She looks up at him and smiles, all teeth, while she digs her nails into the bare skin of his arm so hard Johnny won’t be surprised to find moon-shaped nail marks when she lets go. 

 

“Ok,” Johnny says slowly, turning to Peter with raised eyebrows. “Let’s got to the movies.”

 

 

***

 

 

Peter was there the first time Johnny ever went to the movies. Before his mum died and his dad left, they took Johnny and Sue for the first time in the middle of July - about the same time of year as now, Peter thinks, because the pavement stings the same as it did back when they were six as they pile out of MJ’s car.

 

Johnny and Sue got to bring a friend, because it was a real big treat to go to the movies, and of course Johnny invited Peter. So Peter stayed the night at the Storm’s and the next day they went to the Orpheum, and Johnny loved every single thing about it - even the thousand-year-old fake velvet seats that creaked every time you moved.

 

But it was the middle of summer, which is always when the aircon decides to blow up, so they were sitting watching _Bringing Up Baby_ in four-thousand-degree heat and it was awful. Peter got heatstroke and Sue nearly throttled Johnny because of course, Johnny loved it. Sweat dripping off his face, eyes glued to the screen, little heart gleaming out his eyes. He loved it. His parents never took him back, after that. Johnny always went on his own. 

 

And it being the middle of summer, when the three of them stand out on the sidewalk squinting up at the titles, there’s a whole lot of people (by Baxterville standards) watching them doing it. School holidays, middle of the day, nothing to do. Everyone goes to the Orpheum. Johnny may have slipped into town unnoticed but news travels fast, especially when it’s about people like Johnny Storm. He’s always been on everyones radar, shining just a bit brighter than anyone else, but after the whole disappearing act? He’s the closest thing Baxterville has ever gotten to a celebrity. 

 

“I feel like I should be charging people by the minute, here,” Johnny says, hands in his back pockets as he rocks back on his heels and reads the movie titles off the billboard above their heads. “Screw seeing a movie - we could be making money off these gawkers.”

 

“I wanna see _Ghostbusters,_ ” MJ says, popping a bubble with her gum as she slides her gaze over to Johnny. “It’s the first recent movie they’ve shown here since _Twilight_ came out.”

 

“Don’t worry about them,” Peter says to Johnny, even as one of the kids they went to high school with actually points at Johnny so their entire group looks over. Peter watches Johnny effortlessly ruffle his hair into something more ‘purposefully debauched’ than ‘slept on sideways,’ and his heart breaks just a little bit. 

 

“I never do, Petey,” Johnny says, waiting a beat before cracking a grin and dodging MJ’s elbow aimed at his stomach. 

 

“You’ve got a big head for a deadbeat, Storm,” MJ says. “Now lets get some fucking popcorn, I’m starving.”

 

They sit in the front row of the Orpheum’s first theatre - the biggest one, and it’s packed for a Baxterville Tuesday. MJ passes them their cups of melted butter and starts threading bits of popcorn onto skewers she swiped from the kitchen (she’s close with Gwen, the Orpheum’s sole employee apart from the owner). Peter sits in between MJ and Johnny and tries to will feeling back into his hands. 

 

This whole thing is so bizarre. If someone told him this time yesterday that he’d be sitting in the movie theatre between Johnny fucking Storm and his best friend MJ, eating popcorn skewers like they’re thirteen again, he’d have probably passed out. And its like going into shock, sitting here, because his heart and his head are feeling a whole lot of different things that Peter’s body can’t process all at once. He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry, run or hide, punch Johnny in the face or climb into his lap and never let go. 

 

If he thinks about it, Peter’s always felt this way about Johnny. He used to make Peter so angry, playing with his hair and smiling that lop-sided, devastating thing that had the entire town eating out of the palm of his hand. It made Johnny look invincible - like water couldn’t touch the permanent spark of his flame. 

 

But Peter knows Johnny, and he knows that isn’t true. Peter loves the Johnny that cried tears of actual joy when he saw his first movie at the theatres; the Johnny who carries the weight of his father’s disappearance like he’s the one to blame for having a shitbag for a dad; the one who isn’t afraid to hold Peter’s hand when the world feels like it’s crumbling away. It’s just, Johnny hides that part of himself away like it’s dirty and it used to make Peter want to grab him by the shoulders and throw him through a goddamn wall. He wanted to scream _nobody cares if you feel something,_ right in his face. And even if they did, he’d say _fuck them, I don’t. I don’t. I never will._

 

Peter’s never been enough, though. Not for someone like Johnny, who could have the whole world if he wanted to. Sometimes Peter felt like the only person on the planet who knew Johnny Storm for real, but in the end it didn’t matter. Peter wasn’t enough to stop Johnny leaving. He’s not stupid enough this time around to think he’s enough to get Johnny to stay. 

 

He’s already itching to go - Peter can see it. Johnny’s hands are trembling as they dip a popcorn skewer into his cup of butter, nothing too noticeable but Peter’s always had keener vision for Johnny’s mood swings than anyone else. He’s glancing at the edges of the room like they might magically create an exit for him to slip out of to escape the prying eyes of a town that never forgets, MJ’s piercing glare whenever she hands him a popcorn skewer, Peter.

 

Goddam Johnny Storm, and goddamn Peter and his betraying insides. He can’t focus on the movie because his organs are too busy going absolutely haywire, shaking like they want to fly out of his body and morph themselves onto Johnny like some really gruesome human caterpillar situation. He wants to cling onto Johnny and never let him go - the more Johnny wants to leave, the more Peter feels crazy with the need to hold on. He has to sit on his hands to stop himself from grabbing Johnny’s where it rests between them, open on his thigh like he’s just waiting for Peter to take it.

 

“Needta pee,” MJ mutters, shoving the popcorn and her cup of butter at Peter with no warning. Peter fumbles with his own cup and all of MJ’s crap as she ducks out of the theatre - he can feel Johnny shaking with muffled laughter as Peter tries not to get hot butter all over himself. 

 

Eventually, Johnny whispers, “Here,” and takes the cups from Peter. He puts them on the floor under his seat, along with the popcorn, and then proceeds to lick the butter from his fingers one at a time. Peter can’t stop staring. It’s a dark movie theatre so he thinks the flush of heat to his face is hidden, but he can’t stop staring and he knows Johnny’s going to notice. It’s Johnny - when doesn’t he notice?

 

Johnny turns to Peter, the side of his thumb between his lips, completely oblivious for all of three seconds. Then his face splits into an awful, beautiful smile that seems blinding to Peter even in the dark. On screen someone’s getting attacked by a CGI monster but Peter can barely hear it. His ears are ringing, and Johnny is smiling, and he’s suddenly got absolutely nothing to do with his hands. 

 

“You’re missing the movie,” Johnny whispers to him, finally removing the thumb from his mouth. 

 

Peter nods dumbly, shifting to look back up at the screen. He can still feel Johnny looking at him. Heat spreads torturously slow from the side of his face to his whole body, and if he turns back he knows he’ll be done for.

 

There’s a shift in the air, palpable to Peter’s fried nerve endings - so much so the hairs on his arms stand on end as Johnny moves close enough for Peter to feel his hot breath against his ear. Peter valiantly suppresses a shiver. That’s about as much as he has going for him, at the moment. 

 

“You’re going red, Petey,” Johnny whispers, right into the shell of Peter’s ear. He can feel Johnny’s lips move as he speaks, and it’s like a liquid bomb detonates in the pool of Peter’s stomach. He forgets, in the space of a heartbeat, how to breathe. “Do ghosts turn you on?”

 

“Asshole,” Peter whispers, turning his head slightly towards Johnny so he can hear him. Peter feels Johnny grin, now against his cheek, and the flyaway ends of Johnny’s curls are nearly poking him in the eye but he doesn’t care. He can’t breathe, and the burn in his lungs has never felt so good before. 

 

“But you didn’t say no.” Johnny licks his lips, and the tip of his tongue flicks against Peter’s scorching cheek. The shock of wet cold makes Peter shudder, this time - he can’t help it. There’s so much sensation happening in the dark of this theatre that Peter feels completely undone by it, unspooled in the seat of his chair.  


Peter could kiss Johnny right now. Then he might finally be able to put a name to the unthinkable things Johnny makes him feel. They could be real small-town teenagers and kiss in a dark movie theatre, and Peter could know what Johnny’s mouth tastes like and if he burns just as hot on the inside as he is bright on the outside. 

 

But MJ comes back from the bathroom and throws herself into the chair beside Peter, jostling them apart. But really, that’s just an excuse, because none of that is what he and Johnny are. They aren’t childhood sweethearts - they might not even still be friends. Cliches like that are for people who believe in them, and Peter’s always been convinced that he and Johnny repel just as much as they draw each other in.

 

“What did I miss?” MJ whispers in Peter’s other ear, and it’s cold, and it’s nothing like Johnny, and Peter feels completely scooped out. Hollow. Johnny is sitting back in his chair, eyes glued to the screen. 

 

“Not much,” Peter says. He sits on his hands. “Nothing important.”

 

 

 

***

 

 

Johnny smiles and waves at the Doctor O’Brian’s family as they pass through the doors to the Orpheum. Their heads crane to follow him, even as the doors swing shut and he joins Peter and MJ on the blistering sidewalk. Peter watches him deflate as the family disappear inside - shoulders slumping, his jacket looking two sizes bigger than a moment ago. He’s still dirty from whatever road he travelled down to get here, and almost blends in with the dust-covered buildings lining Main Street. 

 

“I’ve gotta get ready for work,” MJ says, casting meaningful glances between Peter and Johnny which Peter can’t decipher. Peter glances up - the sun is getting low, and MJ’s night shift will begin in an hour or so. He wonders what that’ll mean for Johnny. 

 

“I don’t wanna walk back to the farm,” Peter whines. Maybe, if they linger in town for a bit longer he can keep Johnny here for a few more hours. For some reason, he feels like going back someplace they’ve already been will remind Johnny why he left in the first place, and he’ll be gone before Peter can blink. 

 

“I’ve got my bike,” Johnny says. He grins at Peter and slings an arm over his shoulder, friendly like. Peter is once again torn between the urge to laugh and to cry. “We can do donuts in the mud paddock.”

 

“If you wanna get murdered by Aunt May, go right ahead,” Peter says, jabbing two fingers into Johnny’s ribcage so he’ll squirm. Johnny yelps and pinches the soft part of Peter’s upper arm until Peter wriggles out from under Johnny’s grip and shields himself behind MJ. 

 

She is unimpressed. “Uh-huh,” she says, turning to raise her eyebrows at Peter in a way that clearly telegraphs, _you’re acting like you’re sixteen all over again._ And maybe he is, but it feels nice out here in the cooling afternoon sun, joking around with Johnny like Peter hasn’t been missing him for two years - like everything is normal. 

 

MJ leans in to kiss his cheek and pat his shoulder, giving him another look that says, _normal used to be sans-Johnny, remember?_ He was gone that long. But now he’s back, and Peter is going to make the most of it before he really does have to remember his life without Johnny Storm. He’ll have plenty of time for that when he’s gone. 

 

“Seeya, Mary-Jane,” Johnny says. MJ glares over her shoulder at him and climbs into her car without another word. Peter and Johnny watch her drive off, towards her apartment above the Watson Pub. Their shoulders bump, and Peter feels the soft leather of Johnny’s leather jacket against the thin fabric of his t-shirt. How Johnny isn’t burning up under those layers, he’ll never know. 

 

“So,” Peter says, turning to Johnny with raised eyebrows. “Bike?”

 

“Yeah, I traded in my old shitty one for a slightly less shitty one. You’re gonna love it.” Johnny slings his arm back around Peter’s shoulders to steer him down the street. Both of them ignore the piercing eyes that follow their progress - eventually, the town will get over the miraculous return of Johnny Storm. 

 

“Am I gonna love it because I’m gonna wanna fix it?” Peter asks, and lets himself be steered. The weight of Johnny’s arm feels way too nice to shrug off, anyway. 

 

Johnny tilts his head up just slightly to grin at Peter - it’s kind of startling to remember that he’s about half an inch taller than Johnny. It always feels the other way around. 

 

“Never change, Pete,” Johnny says. “It isn’t easy to find a good mechanic for free, y’know.”

 

The bike is shit, but it is less shit than the one Johnny rode out of Baxterville two years ago. Under the deeply crusted layer of mud and dirt, Peter can tell it was once a nice, shiny black. Johnny hands him the sole helmet that doesn’t look as well used as the rest of the bike (Peter refrains from frowning) and swings his leg over the seat. Peter’s mouth runs dry. It’s funny, but with all this talk about bikes he never actually pictured Johnny riding one. 

 

It’s a sight. Feet planted firmly on the cracked asphalt, running a hand through his curls to get them out of his eyes as he fishes sunglasses from the V of his borrowed t-shirt - the sun hits him just right enough to make him look like something out of a magazine cover. That’s Johnny fucking Storm, the golden boy, right there. Johnny may not be that guy anymore but damn, he still looks good pretending to be. Peter jams the helmet over his head to hide the thrill of- something that’s probably written all over his face. 

 

“Hop on, Parker.” Johnny starts the bike and revs the engine, grinning at the unhealthy rattle it makes like he knows the face Peter is pulling under the visor of the helmet. Peter hops. He’s much less graceful than Johnny, and hurriedly clings to the back of Johnny’s t-shirt so he doesn’t go stumbling off the side. 

 

And oh, there’s another problem Peter didn’t foresee. Himself, riding a bike with Johnny Storm. Holding onto Johnny’s waist with both hands, under the jacket so Peter can feel the heat of his skin beneath his thin t-shirt. The rumble of the bike between his thighs, his senses muffled behind the helmet so everything his body touches feels amplified by ten thousand percent. It’s so much, and Johnny is laughing so loud, louder than Peter’s heard in years, that when Johnny peels out of the lot with a delighted whoop Peter feels like they’re riding straight into a dream. 

 

Johnny doesn’t take them to Peter’s house. He goes a way down towards the farms before turning right, along the track that can barely be classified as a road. The Moon’s wilting, dead crops rise tall above them on one side while the other stretches barren and forever, so Peter can see the slowly setting sun over the rooflines of Baxterville town. 

 

It’s pretty, his town. Peter’s always thought so. He’s never been like Johnny, who had a map in his bedroom and would throw darts at it whenever he got bored, saying that he didn’t care if it landed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean - he’d find a way to get there. Peter always loved home; Baxterville, his parent’s house in town he can barely remember now, the farm. 

 

He loves knowing every inch of dirt and scrub and crop and cow paddy. Even if he hates half of them and they hate him, he likes walking down the street and knowing every face - even some of the truckies that come through on the regular. MJ at the diner, her dad at the pub, seeing Sue Storm and Richard Reed bickering while they grocery shopped in the way Peter always secretly adored, because the look on their faces simply said _I love you even if you won’t let me buy the nice white bread._ They’re gone, but most things have stayed the same his whole life and he’s never seen that as a bad thing.

 

Johnny will never feel that way about Baxterville, and that is why he will leave and Peter will stay. There will always be this distance between them. Johnny is chasing a horizon he may never reach and Peter is watching the smudge of his shadow get further and further away, right from his kitchen window. 

 

Peter grips onto Johnny’s waist a little tighter and concentrates on the whipping of the dead crops beside them in the wind. He doesn’t think Johnny will notice. But he takes a hand off the handlebar and picks up one of Peter’s, pulls it around his body to rest low on his stomach. Peter fists the fabric of his shirt in an unconscious impersonation of the clenching spasm his heart his doing, and moves his other hand to Johnny’s stomach too. Johnny taps the back of his palm twice and goes back to holding onto the bike with both hands. 

 

Peter feels something unravel in those two quick taps on his skin. Like some morse code direct to his heart, or something else cliche and terrible. Peter melts. He rests the chunky crown of the helmet against Johnny’s back and has to remind himself how to breathe, in and out, because the careful equilibrium he had established with his insides ever since Johnny left is being upset and he can’t breathe. He wants this too much. He’s afraid of too much. Holding into Johnny feels like trying to catch a sunbeam in his hands. 

 

It’s obvious where they’re going. The only house out here is the Storm’s, still empty from when they packed up and left a year ago. Peter doesn’t know what Johnny wants to find in there, but he’s not going to tell him to turn around. Even if Peter thinks seeing his childhood home deserted is going to tear Johnny to pieces. 

 

Johnny drives the bike down this road like he’s done a thousand times in his dreams. Or maybe they’re more like nightmares - he’s never really been sure. But it’s always him, on his bike, driving past the Moon’s crops on one side and Baxterville on the other, the sun getting lower and lower but Johnny doesn’t get any closer. The road stretches on. If he closes his eyes he can still picture every pothole and dip perfectly, but in the dream he could never see what was at the end of the road. 

 

The Storm’s house was always grand, even if it was built in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Johnny’s mum always had specific tastes, and it’s weird, but whenever Johnny pictures his mum’s face it always morphs into this house. Gable roof, big arched windows, the porch that wraps all the way around like they’re on a goddamn plantation. The posts are all painted baby-blue - cracked, now, with neglect and sun bleach. Johnny thinks of his mum, and he thinks of baby-blue. 

 

He parks the bike out front and lets Peter get off first. When he tugs the helmet off, Johnny has to support himself on the bike from laughing so hard his stomach cramps. His goddamn _hair_ \- it’s a fucking menace, that mop, and Johnny wants to run his hands through it’s crazy spikes. Especially when he watches Peter do it, embarrassed and red faced and muttering at Johnny to _cut it out._

 

Johnny does. Looking up at the house, windows all shut up and the rose bushes long dead, sobers Johnny in a second. His family really isn’t in there. Sue isn’t waiting in the kitchen to yell at him for being late, Reed isn’t out in the garage fiddling with his inventions, and Ben isn’t lying on his bed thumbing through his porn mag stash just to make a point. Johnny’s the only one left. He and Peter, standing side by side as they look up at the house and pointedly not at each other. 

 

The keys to the house is a deadweight in Johnny’s palm when he fishes them out of his jacket pocket. Peter seems surprised that Johnny still has them - and to be honest, Johnny is too. When he left Baxterville two years ago it wasn’t with the thought that he would ever come back. What use did a ghost have for keys? 

 

Maybe that’s been the problem this whole time. Johnny never left, not really, because too much of him was tied up in things back here. 

 

“Do you think Mo’s still around?” Peter asks, cracking the silence in two. Johnny’s grateful - he’s already getting to caught up in his head. But thinking of Mo makes him want to laugh, not cry. That stupid stray cat adopted his sister and hated everyone else. It used to sit at the kitchen door and beg for Sue to feed it, but would scratch anyone else who came near it. Johnny hated that cat. He’d probably try and hug it if he saw it again. 

 

“I sure hope not, or my room’s gonna be a disaster.” Johnny jangles the keys in his hand, restless. Now all he wants to do is go inside. 

 

“Don’t you mean a _cat_ astrophe,” Peter grins, dancing out of the way of Johnny’s punch with a laugh. Johnny rolls his eyes and heads for the door, Peter still laughing as he follows behind. 

 

The door creaks when it opens, like every movie cliche, and the first thing Johnny notices is the dust. It covers everything, but everything is just the floor and the walls because there’s nothing else left. EvenBen’s gross, muddy boots that Johnny always tripped over when he walked through the door are gone. Johnny heaves in a deep, musty smelling breath, and walks through the door. 

 

Peter follows behind Johnny as he walks, dragging a finger along the wall so it leaves a trail of dust after every room he enters. First the kitchen, which has nothing but the dead cacti plant Ben got Sue for her birthday one time which she promptly killed in about three days. Next, the laundry (no sign of Mo, thank god). Then the living room - it’s the hardest, because there’s enough stuff left behind here to almost make it seem like home. 

 

Sue and Reed left the couch, the coffee table and one random dining chair (it’s probably the creaky one - Johnny used to sit on it and rock at dinner time just to get Sue to scream). Johnny follows the wall to the fireplace, avoiding the furniture left standing there like ghosts, which is maybe why it takes him a few minutes to see it sitting on the coffee table. 

 

The envelope is baby-blue, and for one irrational second Johnny thinks it’s from his mum - like, from beyond the grave or something. But it’s not. Sue’s handwriting jumps out at him, his name in pretty cursive. _Johnny._ He wants to throw up. He wants to tear this house apart and tear his hair out and throw the fuck up. 

 

“Is that-?” Peter takes a step towards the letter, but Johnny cuts him off by striding towards it. He snatches it up off the coffee table, his hands shaking as he holds it but it doesn’t crumble into dust in his hands like he half expects it too. The paper feels funny and old, but it’s still very much there. _Johnny_. Christ. He can feel his heartbeat in his fingertips. 

 

Johnny can see the past two years, the past ten, his whole entire life spread out in front of him like a tableaux and all of a sudden, it’s hilarious. If he starts laughing right now he’ll never stop, it’s that fucking funny. Johnny Storm has never been that enigmatic wonder boy, that mysterious runaway, the guy who came back without a word just the same way he’d left. He’s the most predictable, sad cliche in the entire world. 

 

Sue knew he would come back. His whole entire life Johnny believed that once he finally left this place, that would be it. Those two years he spent away, even when the loneliness was eating at his skin like acid and all it felt like was a mistake, he thought - _that town is never going to see me again._ But that was all a fucking joke, wasn’t it? Johnny never convinced anybody, not even himself, because look at him. He’s back. Like he never even left in the first place.

 

“Are you gonna open it?” Peter asks, hesitantly peering over Johnny’s shoulder to look at the envelope in his trembling hands. Johnny clenches his fist, watches the envelope crumple at the centre, and whirls away from Peter. 

 

“This is a joke,” Johnny says, and laughs. Maybe it’s hysterical - who the fuck cares anymore. “This has got to be a fucking joke - did you do this?” He rounds on Peter, getting up in his face and shoving the crumpled envelope under his nose. “Did you fucking come here and do this?”

 

“No! Why would I do that?” Peter bats Johnny’s hand away, look at Johnny like he doesn’t even know him - and that hurts the most. Johnny feels crazy, throwing his head back as he laughs again and strides away from Peter to hunch over the envelop on the middle of his old living room. 

 

His empty fucking living room, nothing left but a sad little letter because no one believed for one goddamn second Johnny could leave for real. He’s doomed to haunt this place forever. The only person who didn’t know that was Johnny. 

 

“God, what am I even doing here!” Johnny yells, and throws the envelope at the wall. It isn’t satisfying enough, just flutters uselessly to the ground a foot away from it’s intended target, so Johnny spins around and kicks at a chair hard enough to send it flying. He watches Peter flinch and doesn’t feel a thing. 

 

“Johnny-“

 

“I’ve gotta go,” Johnny mutters, tearing at his hair in both fists. He closes his eyes and tries to will his lungs to move in a regular pattern but they won’t cooperate. He kicks the chair again, screams, “Fuck! What am I doing here? What the fuck am I doing?”

 

“I don’t know!” Peter yells, somehow in Johnny’s face from the complete opposite side of the room. 

 

Johnny whips his head up to look at him - he’s breathing hard, like Johnny, eyes wild like he can’t believe what he’s saying but he’s saying it anyway. Johnny always loved that about Peter. Even scared to death, he never backs away from a fight. 

 

“That’s the whole problem, Johnny,” Peter says, making a decent effort at controlling his volume. “I don’t know what the hell you’re doing - I don’t think anybody does, least of all you. So why are you fighting so hard, huh? What are you running from?”

 

And that’s just it, isn’t it? Johnny has never known what it is that has him itching out of his skin to just go, go, no matter where or how - just go. It’s always been there, this niggling in his brain and he can’t make it quit. The only time he ever feels settled, it feels, is when Peter is touching him. And maybe that’s what he’s really running from, because he knows what that means. He feels it in every dark, dusty place he refuses to shine a light into for fear of what he might find. 

 

All his life he’s never really known what home is. He has his sister, sure, and then Reed and Ben but- they have their own things to take care off, too. Johnny isn’t it for anyone. He’s never been a home, so he doesn’t think he knows what to do with one if he ever finds it. But when he thinks about it, staring at Peter in his catacomb of a living room - he’s had one all along. Sitting right there behind his heartbeat, in the corner of every memory and thought and feeling he’s ever had in his life. 

 

It’s terrifying because it’s beautiful. Peter is beautiful, all freckles and lanky limbs and stupid hair and a smell like fresh laundry and sweat and boy that Johnny wants to put in a goddamn candle. There’s so much good that Johnny can mess up - _will_ mess up, if he hasn’t already. Isn’t it terrible, that the thing he’s been searching for is what he’s been running from this whole time?

 

“I’ve got nowhere to go,” Johnny says, his voice cracking without his express permission. He can’t look at Peter anymore. He stares at Sue’s discarded letter instead, her handwriting slapping him across the face like her stern glares used to, when she’d scold him for yet again being a reckless idiot. 

 

“You don’t have to go anywhere.” The way Peter says it- Johnny closes his eyes again. He can feel fissures forming in the soft parts of his skin and he can’t let it happen. He won’t. The best thing he ever did for Peter Parker was leave this place. 

 

Johnny doesn’t say anything to that. He walks over to Sue’s letter, dodging the chair he kicked, and crouches in front of the blue envelope but doesn’t pick it up. He knows he can’t leave it, but he can’t bring himself to touch it yet either. He just stays there, with Peter’s eyes on his back and his house creaking around him, and tries to make himself stand up and leave. For good, this time. 

 

“Let me show you something,” Peter says. His voice is closer, like he’s moved to stand over Johnny’s shoulder in the time he’s been crouching in the dust. Johnny brushes his fingers over his name in Sue’s handwriting, and feels those fissures get a little deeper. 

 

“If I turn around and you’ve got your dick out, I’m calling the cops.” Johnny uses the time it takes for him to pick up the envelope and turn around to paste a smirk on his face, wiggling his eyebrows at Peter’s slack jawed face. 

 

When he catches on it’s a joke (a goddamn fucking joke), he scrunches his face up and punches Johnny on the shoulder. All of Johnny’s insides shatter with the impact. He tucks the letter in his jacket, lets Peter lead him out of the cavernous ghost of his house, and thinks _you’re fucked. You’re so fucking fucked._

 

 

***

 

 

Peter spent a lot of time during the past two years imaging what Johnny was up to. Sometimes he’d be grocery shopping or helping out Aunt May on the farm or working in the auto shop and he’d think, _somewhere in the world Johnny could be doing the exact same thing_. Obviously, it was stupid. That didn’t stop Peter daydreaming about it anyway. 

 

Most of the time he thought about Johnny late at night, when he’d sneak out of the house and try to suppress the guilt about adding even more worry lines to Aunt May’s face. It’s the coolest at night so Peter can wear the too-small, holey sweater he stole from Johnny when they were fifteen and never, ever mentioned again. He gets on his push bike and he rides, cutting through his farm and the neighbours and on into the scrubby nothingness, until he reaches The Valley.

 

For Baxterville kids, The Valley is the best kind of ghost story. Peter always loved hearing people talk about it, loved taking pictures of the way the sun turns the rocks from brown to grey to dusty purple at different times of day, loved just sitting there and imagining he was dangling his legs off the end of the world. 

 

The Valley is more of a deep, gouged out gulley in the side of the earth. It drops almost vertical, a few scraggly trees growing out the sides, and stretches on for miles and miles. On particular hot days, you can’t even see the other side from the heat haze.

 

Uncle Ben was the first person to tell Peter the story about The Valley. There’s the usual biblical, old wives tale about it’s creation - the town got greedy trying to build a dam that would drain the earth of all it’s water so they could go swimming all year round, so God got angry and gouged the entire town from the earth. The Valley is the grave of a whole city, and for a seven year old boy, it was the sickest story ever. 

 

Peter used to drag Johnny out there in the middle of the night, sneaking around with flashlights and their skateboards, to hunt for ghosts. They never found anything, obviously, but some of the best nights of Peter’s life was spent out there. When they’d get tired, they’d scrabble back up The Valley wall (and the kids at school hero-worshiped them for that - Johnny and Peter, the boys who slid down The Valley on their skateboards and made it out alive) and just sit. 

 

The moon looked so huge, hanging above the giant hole in the world. Johnny would knock his shoulder into Peter’s occasionally, just to remind himself that Peter was still there. Peter thinks that’s the first time he knew he loved Johnny Storm, because he always came with Peter to hunt ghosts even though he was scared. Peter knew, because his flashlight would shake when they prowled through the dark and he’d stick close to Peter’s shadow the whole time. Johnny was scared and he came anyway, and Peter loved that kid for everything. 

 

Aunt May thinks Peter goes drag racing with the town boys (like he’d go anywhere with Flash Gordon) when he disappears in the middle of the night. His escapades are lot more tame than that. Peter sits where he and Johnny used to sit, kicks his heels into the hard rock of The Valley wall, and finds the ghost of his best friend in the midnight darkness, right at the edge of the world. 

 

He finds him in the constellations and the changing moon and the strange animal noises Uncle Ben could probably name, if he was still here. He asks, _where are you? What are you doing? Are you safe?_ Sometimes, Peter gets so lost out there that he thinks he feels the warmth of Johnny’s shoulder against his. Just for a second. 

 

It probably makes him really sad. MJ says so, and he knows if Johnny had been around he’d be teasing Peter until he laughed so hard he pulled a stitch. But when he couldn’t sleep, going out to find Johnny was the only thing that stopped him from screaming. Baxterville never felt lonely until Johnny Storm left town, and after that it only ever seemed like a ghost town. 

 

So maybe it’s a bit morbid, and a bit weird, that Peter takes Johnny there after the whole thing in his family’s house. It’s just - the look on Johnny’s face reminded him of when they went out ghost hunting as kids. Johnny was so, so scared. Peter knew, like he knows Johnny’s hair matches the colour of the sun and it really was him that glued all the pages of Peter’s physics textbook together in the tenth grade, that he was five seconds from running again. 

  
Peter thought he could let Johnny go. He did it once, what’s a second time? Even in the movies with Johnny’s mouth on his ear, and on the bike when Johnny held his hand, he thought, _if he wants to go, I have to let him go._ But when it was happening right in front of his eyes and he thought about the past few years stretching on for the rest of his life, he couldn’t. If taking Johnny out here will keep him with Peter for a few more hours, then that’s what he’s going to do. 

 

Johnny seems just as spooked by The Valley as he did when they were kids. He pulls the bike up but lingers, doesn’t approach the edge until Peter is already halfway there. It’s not a full moon tonight, but it’s close enough and anyway, Peter never really came here for the view. 

 

Peter sits, but Johnny stands. Peter tilts his head up to watch Johnny watch the horizon, thinks, _this is the first time I’ve ever seen your face from this angle._ Johnny’s jaw looks sharper from down here, his nose more prominent, the slope of his eyelashes like a sledgehammer of shadow to his cheekbones. Johnny doesn’t look down, but if he did Peter thinks he’d be able to see the moon reflected in his eyes. 

 

“Remember when we used to come out here?” Johnny asks. 

 

Peter swallows past the thick wad of something in his throat and says, “Yeah.”

 

“Sue would kick my ass every time I snuck out.” Johnny kicks a pebble and they listen to it bounce all the way down to the bottom of The Valley. “I’d lie about it, but my clothes would be all dirty from sliding down there. Remember how we did that? We were so fucking dumb.”

 

“It was fun, though,” Peter says. 

 

“Yeah,” Johnny sighs. He still won’t look down, only out, and even though he’s standing right next to Peter he still feels lightyears away. 

 

Maybe it’s the distance, or the feeling that they’ve always been a beat apart, but Peter looks out at the moon and asks, “What were you doing, when you were gone?”

 

Two years ago, Peter would never have asked a question like that to Johnny because Johnny would never have answered. That was the thing about Baxterville’s golden boy - he gave everyone everything, but also nothing at all. And Peter was always so scared of losing him, because what did scrawny, nerdy Peter Parker have to offer Johnny Storm? But he lost him anyway. So, now, sitting at the edge of the world, he thinks _what am I even afraid of anymore?_

 

“Don’t think you wanna know that, Petey,” Johnny says. It shouldn’t hurt, because Peter expects it, but it does anyway. 

 

But then Johnny sighs, and he looks down. Peter looks up, and it’s not quite so late that it’s pitch black dark but it’s not light enough for Peter to see the colour of his eyes. But Johnny is looking at him, and he’s sitting down beside him, and he bumps his shoulder against Peter’s and it feels at once like his heart is sewing itself up and cracking in two. 

 

“I’d made it to Chicago by myself,” Johnny says. His voice echoes out over The Valley, but it’s so dark and quiet that the entire world might as well be a little bubble for just the two of them. “But by that point I had no money and my bike was barely working, and I was- homesick, I think. I called Sue, but hung up as soon as she answered.”

 

“You didn’t have to,” Peter says. He doesn’t know why. Instead of being mad, or rolling his eyes or saying a dumb joke, Johnny tilts his head towards Peter with a smile that’s bright enough in the dark to count all his teeth. 

 

“I was in this bar - illegal, I know, Aunt May would have a fit - and this group of big, beefy guys rolled in, parked their bikes on the street like they owned the damn place. So I go up to them and say, ‘know where I can get a new bike?’ and they must’ve taken one look at my dirty ass and thought, _jackpot._ They said they’d give me a new one for free if I helped them with a delivery.”

 

Peter has a bad feeling about this story. He had a bad feeling the entire time Johnny was gone, and while his irrational brain told him Johnny was dead Peter didn’t account for the fact that Johnny could’ve very well been in real, alive danger. 

 

“I travelled around with them for two years. The guy - called himself Annihilus, right, what a tool - put me up like a fucking sugar baby if I delivered his drugs to the right people. It was- I thought we were like a nomad family, y’know, on our bikes with no one to have our back but each other. Real movie shit. But it turns out they were just assholes. And I think- I was really lonely, Pete. The whole time I thought I’d made it but I was just really, really lonely.”

 

Johnny stares out at The Valley, and Peter wants to kiss him. It’s weird, but it’s the first time Peter’s ever actually had that thought. It hits him sideways, steals the breath from his lungs, but it’s there and all consuming - he wants to kiss Johnny. Peter wants to hold his face in his hands and tell him it doesn’t matter what he’s done, it never has. Peter has loved him since he was six years old and he doesn’t think anything in the world could change it. 

 

As per usual, Peter is too busy overthinking things in his head to realise Johnny’s beat him to the punch yet again. He’s been staring at Johnny, and Johnny looks over all wide-eyed. They’re so close, sitting like this, that when Johnny turns his head their noses brush. It feels softer than in the movie theatre - like everything is muted expect for the sound of Peter’s heartbeat in his chest and the whisper brush of Johnny’s eyelashes as he blinks. 

 

In one quick motion, Johnny presses their foreheads together and closes his eyes. Peter definitely holds in his undignified squeak of surprise - definitely. Johnny breathes out all shuddery, his hot breath ghosting over Peter’s lips and if he wasn’t already sitting down, he’d be on his knees. 

 

“I’m scared, Peter,” Johnny whispers, but it seems so loud in the quiet. And Johnny is scared - his hands are trembling when they come up to rest either side of Peter’s neck. Peter’s body is so laser-focused to Johnny’s touch that his hands feel like brands on Peter’s skin. He wants more. He wants it everywhere. He’s never been so sure of something in his entire life. 

 

“I’m always gonna be here,” Peter whispers back - a promise.

 

And maybe it’s that, or maybe it’s because they’ve been hurtling towards each other their whole lives and it’s taken time and distance and pain to get them to this point, right here, on the edge of the world. Maybe it’s nothing at all. But it’s now, no matter how they got here, that Johnny finally, finally, finally tugs Peter close and kisses him. 

 

It doesn’t feel like fireworks or worlds colliding or the start of something huge. It feels like they’ve been doing this forever - Johnny’s mouth hot on Peter’s, kissing so softly that Peter melts piece by piece. He’s got a hand in Johnny’s shirt and the other tangled in his curls, tugging him closer, pushing his tongue into Johnny’s mouth because he can’t get enough fast enough. And yes, Johnny is just as hot on the inside as he is bright on the outside, and yes, Peter can no longer feel his toes. 

 

Johnny feels slightly like they’re going to fall off the edge and into The Valley. He doesn’t think he’d mind. Peter’s mouth on his is sealing something inside him he didn’t even know was torn apart. He’s breathing Peter’s air and it isn’t gross. Their kiss turns wet and kind of sloppy and it isn’t gross. Johnny crawls into Peter’s lap and tilts his head up with two thumbs pressed into the hinge of his jaw, and it’s perfect. 

 

Peter pulls away panting, eyes squeezed shut while Johnny’s rove his face as he tries to commit this picture to memory. Peter’s swollen spit-slick lips, his eyelashes full and fluttering as he fights to keep his eyes closed, his chest heaving up and down so it brushes against Johnny’s with every breath. Peter’s thighs feel amazing under Johnny’s ass, and that’s not something Johnny ever thought could feel amazing, but here they are. 

 

Here they are, after all this time, and for the first time in what feels like forever Johnny doesn’t feel afraid. He doesn’t want to run. This is what he has been looking for the whole damn time. 

 

“Don’t go,” Peter breathes. His hands are on Johnny’s hips, and they slide under his t-shirt to grip his skin so tight it might bruise. “Please don’t go.”

 

Johnny laughs. It’s probably not the best response, but his chest feels so light right now he thinks he might die if he doesn’t laugh. Peter’s eyes fly open to watch him, and Johnny throws his head back to see the stars as he laughs and laughs. When he’s done, he leans back down to kiss Peter’s panic back into submission - slow and wet and kind of gross, but that’s perfect too. 

 

“Careful what you wish for, Petey,” Johnny mumbles against Peter’s mouth, a smile stretching his face before he can control it. “You might just be stuck with me forever.”

 

“You’re so corny I could push you into The Valley right now,” Peter says. Johnny is back to laughing again, this time burying his face into the side of Peter’s neck and shaking against his chest. Peter’s skin erupts in goosebumps from the vibrations, and Johnny thinks _interesting,_ and Johnny licks a stripe all the way up to Peter’s ear just to watch him shiver. 

 

“So I was right,” Johnny says, right against the shell of Peter’s ear. Peter tries to turn his head but Johnny holds him still by the jaw and tries not to smile too hard in case Peter feels it. 

 

“Right about what?” Peter asks, all snotty like he’s entirely unimpressed by Johnny’s antics. Peter loves Johnny’s antics. He knows, because Peter kissed him. 

 

“You actually are a serial killer,” Johnny says. “You’ve lured me out here to push me into The Valley where no one will ever find my body.”

 

“Oh no,” Peter deadpans, “You’ve discovered my masterplan.”

 

Johnny takes Peter’s earlobe between his teeth and pulls, his entire body thrumming with the way Peter jolts and grips Johnny’s hips even tighter. He kisses behind Peter’s ear and whispers, “Kinky.”

 

“I hate you,” Peter declares, and then proceeds to roll them so Johnny ends up sprawled on the dirty ground with Peter straddling his hips, their legs dangling off the edge of The Valley like they wouldn’t break their necks and die if they fell down it. The adrenaline makes this whole situation ten times hotter, in Johnny’s humble opinion. 

 

“No you don’t.” Johnny smirks up at Peter, and licks his lips. Even in the dark Johnny can see the way Peter’s eyes dilate. “You kissed me, you can’t hate me.”

 

“Technically, you kissed me,” Peter says. “You broke a twelve year streak, Storm, it’s not something to be proud of.”

 

“Then why do I feel so happy about it?” Johnny asks, punctuating his point by thrusting his hips up into Peter’s. His jeans catch on Peter’s boner, and _fuck,_ that feels way too good. It’s too early in the game for Johnny to be losing his breath over Peter Parker’s clothed boner. 

 

“Because you’re an asshole,” Peter says, but he’s grinning as he leans down to kiss the laugh right out of Johnny’s mouth. 

 

 

***

 

 

Aunt May knows exactly what they’ve been up to as soon as Peter and Johnny stumble through the front door. They’re hanging all over each other laughing, laughing like they’re twelve years old again, and they don’t even notice she’s sitting at the kitchen table waiting up for them until they’re halfway into the room. 

 

“Oh,” Peter says, coming up short with his hand still lingering around Johnny’s middle, mid-poke. “I didn’t know you were still up.”

 

“I was making sure you didn’t run off into the night together,” Aunt May says, one eyebrow raised. Peter goes bright red.

 

“No running off, Aunt May. We’re staying right here,” Johnny says as he slings an arm around Peter’s shoulders, knocking their bodies together. Aunt May tries very, very hard to hide her smile behind a disapproving frown. 

 

“Good, or you’d both be grounded for the rest of your lives.” Aunt May rises from her seat and wraps her dressing gown tighter around her middle. Peter is home, and it looks like Johnny is staying - this morning, that would’ve been her worst nightmare. Now it feels like the chaos of the past two years is finally settling back into place. 

 

“Goodnight, Aunt May,” Peter mumbles as May reaches him, leaning up for a kiss on the cheek. She pats his chest, smiles at Johnny, and leaves them to it. 

 

Peter watches Aunt May trudge off to bed with his lip between his teeth. He didn’t mean to worry her, and of course she would think he’d run off in the middle of night without telling her - it’s essentially what he’s been doing for months now. He hates the way he’s made her worry. 

 

Before Peter can get too caught up in his head, Johnny wraps his arm further around Peter’s neck and tugs him into his chest. They smack noses with an ‘oomph’ and Peter slaps him away while Johnny tries not to disturb Aunt May with the sheer force of his muffled laughter into Peter’s cheek. 

 

“What was that for?” Peter grumbles, but he lets Johnny trail his nose up and down his cheek like their old sheepdog used to. It tickles, but Peter likes it. 

 

“Sometimes I have to remind you who’s in charge here,” Johnny says. He grazes his teeth against Peter’s cheek which is just- it shouldn’t be good. It should be weird. But everything about Johnny and Peter is weird, so it is good, and Peter only just manages to stifle his shudder. 

 

“It’s cute you think it’s you,” Peter says, valiantly maintaining a straight face. Johnny bites him for that. 

 

“Aw, you think I’m cute? That’s embarrassing.” Johnny pulls away to grin at Peter, while Peter just gives him a flat look and jabs him in the stomach.

 

“We were literally making out ten minutes ago,” Peter reminds him - like either of them could forget. Johnny’s smile turns sharp, and then his other arm is around Peter’s waist and tugging him in, in, in, until they’re pressed together seam for seam. Their noses brush, and doesn’t ruin the mood, because Peter’s eyes are fluttering shut of their own accord and his lips are parting just to feel the barely-there brush of Johnny’s mouth against his. 

 

“Y’know I love you, right?” Johnny whispers, like it’s obvious, like Peter should’ve known that all along - and maybe he did, in some secret part of his insides that refused to reveal itself, but the confession still hits Peter like a slap to the face. 

 

The snap of it makes his skin glow, though - starting from his face and dripping liquid gold all the way to his toes. Johnny always makes him feel warm all over just by being around Peter, like some of Johnny’s sun rubs off on him. Peter slides his hands up Johnny’s chest and digs his fingers into the fabric of his t-shirt, keeping him close, and tries to remind himself that crying would really ruin the mood. 

 

“Aw, Johnny, that’s so embarrassing.” Peter waits a beat before smiling. Johnny scowls and slaps him on the ass, which makes Peter jump even further into him and they stumble back a step. But he can’t stop smiling. _Johnny Storm loves me._ He’s going to be warm forever.

 

“Now who’s an asshole?” Johnny grumbles, making like he’s going to pull away. Peter fists his shirt and tugs him back, pressing their foreheads together so tightly Peter goes a bit cross-eyed before he closes them. 

 

“Still you.” Peter kisses Johnny, soft and quick, before licking the tip of his nose and grinning when Johnny squirms. “Y’know I love you, too, right?”

 

“You’re so unoriginal, Peter Parker. I don’t know how I can stand to be around you.”

 

“Well, you could sleep on the couch again if being around me is such a tough ask,” Peter says, drawing back fully so Johnny can feel the entire effect of his raised eyebrows. He turns to walk down the hall, and Johnny pounces on him - arms wrapping around his waist and legs tangling together so they walk like some four-legged alien creature, probably waking up Aunt May in the process. 

 

“I have to warn you Petey,” Johnny says as he flops back on Peter’s bed, “I’m a sheet stealer.”

 

“I know.” Peter kicks at Johnny’s foot dangling off the bed, and starts taking off his jeans. “We’ve slept in the same bed on sleepovers since we were eight.”

 

“Ooh, are you gonna give me a show?” Johnny asks, sitting up on his elbows to waggle at Peter as he strips his shirt off. Peter flips him off and throws the shirt at Johnny’s head. Slightly muffled from under the shirt, Johnny announces, “I sleep naked.”

 

“I know that too,” Peter says. He collapses onto the bed face-first into the pillow beside Johnny, in just his boxers. He twists his head so Johnny can catch the corner of his grin. 

 

“Perv.” Johnny shoves Peter’s shoulder and starts stripping off his own clothes while Peter burrows further into his pillow. 

 

“You love me,” he mumbles. Johnny’s frantic undressing slows, and Peter is dropping off to sleep, but he still feels Johnny lean down and kiss his temple in a way he’d never admit to in the morning. 

 

“Yeah, I do.” 

 

 

***

 

 

Peter wakes up alone, sheets pooled down by his ankles and a whisper of a warm patch by his side, and he immediately thinks, _Johnny’s gone._ He bolts upright, sleep still desperately clinging to him even as he tries to shake it. He gets tangled in the sheets as he launches out of bed and stumbles into the hall, practically sprinting for the kitchen with his heart in his throat. 

 

He feels guilty for even thinking Johnny would have left when Peter sees him sitting hunched at the kitchen table. Even though the first time he left was a similar kind of situation, the middle of the night- well. That doesn't matter now. Johnny is here and last night did happen and Peter might feel a little thrill of nerves as he walks up to Johnny and wraps his arms around his chest from behind, but all that goes away when Johnny reaches up and rests his hand over Peter’s, keeping him there. 

 

With his chin propped up on Johnny’s head of bed-head curls, one valiantly trying to poke into his nose, Peter can see Sue’s letter lying on the table. Johnny finally opened it, early this morning after Aunt May left, all alone, and now he’s sitting here just staring at it with a cup of cold coffee at his elbow. 

 

“Can I-?” Peter asks, voice croaky from sleep. Johnny nods, jostling Peter’s head, and digs his nails into the back of Peter’s hand.

 

 

_Dear Johnny,_

 

_I know we have these amazing things called phones nowadays, considering Reed is always livestreaming those Apple keynote speeches when he thinks I’m asleep, but you rarely answer yours so I thought I’d try going old school. We miss you. Ben has asked me to tell you that he’s stolen your mattress and you won’t be getting it back._

 

_As you can probably tell, if you listened to my voicemail or are reading this letter, that we moved. Our address is 31 Holland Avenue, Peoria - Reed put us in the phonebook, so you can look us up. I want you to know that there will always be room for you in our home. Always._

 

_I also want to say that I know why you left. We’re not mad. I mean, I was furious for the first six months but I eventually calmed down (although your Jonas Brother’s t-shirt will never be the same, sorry). You needed to go out on your own and experience the world, which I understand. You were scared of being stuck in the same place and coming to resent it because you never got to see anywhere else, and I understand that too. You were scared of becoming Dad._

 

_Don’t get angry because I said that. It’s true. I think after everything, we deserve to be truthful to each other. I want to say, though, that you could never be like Dad. Deep down I’ve always known I’m more like him than you could ever be. You’ve always been Mum - Reed says its the eyes, but I think it’s more than that. You love like her, with everything you have, even when it means sacrificing so much of yourself it nearly kills you._

 

_That’s what I remember about her, anyway, and that’s what I’ve always known about you. It’s how I know that if anything really bad happens while you’re out in the big wide world, you’d call, because you know I’d kick your ass if you anything happened to you. You love me too much to give me that kind of aneurism._

 

_I also know that you love this town, deep down, because it’s your home. I’m sorry we couldn’t stay. But no matter what you decide to do - if you come back to Baxterville, if you come find us, if you never step foot in this side of the country again - I love you, too. We all do. There’s more people out there who love you and forgive you than you think._

 

_So, what I’m trying to say other than that I know everything and should be anointed Queen of the World, is that you can always come home. No matter what you do or where we are, home is always waiting for you. All you have to do is let yourself believe it._

 

_Love always,_

 

_Sue_

 

 

Johnny can hear Peter’s mind churning as he tries to think of something to say. The strange thing is, Johnny thinks there’s probably nothing _to_ say. Sue’s done it all for them, written out in her neat cursive and sarcasm. Maybe Peter thinks Johnny’s going to lose it again like he did at his old house, but he doesn’t feel like throwing the letter at the wall and kicking over a chair. He doesn’t even feel like crying, which would probably be the best response. 

 

He’s just- he understands. Sue has wrapped up a whole lifetime of turmoil twisting at Johnny’s inside in a single, one-paged letter. So he’s not crying and he’s not yelling and, for the first time in his life, he’s not running. He understands, now, that this is where he was meant to be all along - not Baxterville, but sitting in the Parker’s kitchen with Peter’s chin digging painfully into his skull and his noodle arms wrapped around his shoulders like octopus limbs, not letting him leave. He doesn’t want to. Finally, the world has stopped spinning and there’s not a single inch of distance left between them.

 

“Are you-?” Peter asks, seemingly incapable of finishing a sentence. Johnny twists in his seat o smile up at Peter, dislodging him from his head and so his arms wrap around Johnny’s neck. He looks adorably sleep-rumpled and confused and Johnny can’t help it. He leans up and kisses the puzzlement right out of him. 

 

It’s soft and slow and tastes a lot like sleep, which is kind of gross, but Johnny is very much into it. After a small squawk of surprise Peter is too, melting into the back of the chair until it creaks threateningly under their weight and his hand is tangled so far into Johnny’s hair he’s afraid Peter will have to be surgically removed. 

 

“So I didn’t dream that, then,” Peter asks when he pulls away, slightly out of breath and a little cross-eyed from pressing his forehead to Johnny’s. Johnny is not so distracted by the smudge of Peter’s eyelashes to let that comment slide. 

 

“You couldn’t come up with this,” Johnny says, gesturing to his body with a wave of his hand, “in your wildest dreams, Petey.”

 

“It’s too early for this,” Peter announces, moving to pull away. Johnny lets him only enough to twist his chair around, and then he’s tugging Peter into his lap by the band of his boxer-briefs and licking into his mouth again. Peter makes a muffled, offended sound and mumbles, “You taste like cold coffee. Gross.”

 

“Get used to it, baby,” Johnny says, wiggling his eyebrows and smacking Peter’s ass for effect. “This is your life now.”

 

Peter is either too sleepy or too sappy to come up with a witty response, because he just smiles like an idiot and says, “Good,” before leaning in for another kiss. 

 

Eventually the rumble of Peter’s stomach kills the mood of their breakfast make-out session, and so Peter puts on toast and fried eggs and Johnny reheats his truly disgusting coffee. Sue’s letter lies on the table between them, the baby-blue paper softly demanding to be acknowledged. 

 

Johnny clears his throat and wisely decides to set the breakable coffee cup down before his shaky hands cause an accident. Peter twists around to look at him from the stove, eyebrows raised expectantly. Johnny steels himself and says, “I want to go find Sue.”

 

Peter freezes - he wasn’t exactly moving at high velocity, but it’s like he turns into an oil painting right in front of Johnny. The eggs are starting to sizzle at a dangerous volume but Peter doesn’t seem to notice. He’s too busy staring at Johnny like it’s the last time he’s ever going to see him, and Johnny _hates_ it. He hates that he’s made Peter think like that, like any time Johnny leaves a room he’s actually leaving for good. 

 

“I want to see her, and Ben and Reed and I wanna explain why I left and- everything. I miss them. And they deserve to know,” Johnny says, rubbing at the back of his neck as Peter keeps staring, unblinking and unmoving. Their eggs will be burned, but neither of them really care. 

 

Eventually, Peter unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth and says, “Oh. That’s- that’s a good idea, Johnny.”

 

He turns back to the eggs, the lines of muscle in his back held taught and bunched. Johnny abandons his coffee to go over to him, smoothing his palms over his shoulders and pressing his face into the nape of Peter’s neck. He smells like sweat and Aunt May’s fabric softener, which is an oddly addicting combination, and Johnny wonders how the hell Peter could think he’d want to be anywhere else but here, clinging to Peter’s back like a monkey because he never wants to let go.

 

“I’ll come back,” Johnny says into his skin. “I promise I’ll come back.”

 

Peter twists to face Johnny, their faces close enough to bump noses and their eggs truly past the point of salvation. He searches Johnny’s eyes and his face for a long second before letting out a gale force sigh and dropping his forehead to Johnny’s, eyes fluttering closed.

 

“I know you will,” Peter says.

 

And when Johnny rides off on his dirt bike, the sun high in the sky and the trail of dust he kicks up lingering long after he’s gone, Peter’s heart aches. But it doesn’t break. Both of them made promises, and this time, they keep them.

**Author's Note:**

> i made a lil playlist for this fic as well if you wanna listen: https://play.spotify.com/user/g.vangoth/playlist/33qkvpaXxsUYesyWjg87KC
> 
> find me at romanthicc on tumblr if you wanna chat!


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